Night-Blooming Jasmin(n)e: Personal Essays and Poetry

For Jasminne Méndez, pericardial effusion and pericarditis are not just an abnormal accumulation of fluid and increased inflammation around the heart. It’s what happens “when you stifle the tears and pain of a miscarriage, infertility and chronic illness for so long that your heart does the crying for you until it begins to drown because its tears have nowhere to go.”

The daughter of Dominican immigrants, Méndez marshals pathos and outrage to depict the ironic circumstances of her life as sh...